Excellent Fancy
by MightyMiget
Summary: Out of a dead land come a boy and a girl. Their two lives thrust together in haste. Boy born of scorn. Girl wreathed in pride. A world beyond the world they know is out there to explore; to save. Brave the horrors, cull your fears, make peace with your God; the Wasteland doesn't forgive. Fallout AU, lots of OCs
1. Chapter 1

**1: April is the cruellest month**

 **AN: Trying out some new stuff, formatting and writing styles mostly. This fic takes place in the Fallout Universe, but won't really need a prior understanding of the video game franchise to understand. It's not really a crossover, consider it more like an AU fanfic. Story is pretty original.**

 _April 19, 2161: 8:30 PM_

 _Vault-72: Soryu residence_

"What do you mean ' _married'_?" A girl stood from her place on the couch and yelled. Her parents, father and stepmother stood opposite.

Her mother looked sorry almost. "Honey, I know it's on sudden but—"

"I don't care if you would've told me this _years_ ago! You can't choose this for me!" Angry, indignant, Asuka held her ground, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

"Look, Asuka, it's all about genetic diversity. Preventing inbreeding, you can understand that; can't you?" Her father, one of the leading scientists in the Vault, tried to reason with her. "It's not like this has to right away, it's just a betrothal. You won't have to worry about this for years."

The girl shook her head, "I'm worrying about this _now_. This is _my_ life! I'm not some sort of doll or toy you can play around with, I have a life, dreams of my own!" She'd never be a doll. Never. Death was preferable. The choice was her's wasn't it?

"You're almost fifteen, Asuka. It's time to stop thinking about yourself," her father said, "don't you remember what the Overseer said at the last meeting? Population is at an all time low. Birth rates need to meet certain quotas. That's how we can maximize production and minimize waste. Think of the bigger picture."

The girl blinked. Were those tears blurring her vision? "I don't care about any of that! You're throwing away _my_ life… what do you think mom would say?" Asuka took a deliberate stab at her father. The situation was certainly Hamlet-esque. Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu had died, her husband, Asuka's father had married her sister. Strange, uncomfortable. Almost incest, but not quite.

Sympathy fled from the pretender-mother's face, anger filled in. "I'm your mother now Asuka. I've been your mother for almost ten years now," the said the pretender, "Paul Allen is fine match; you should feel happy that he has offered to marry you."

The breath left her, as if she had fallen on her back, winded. _Allen?_ Paul Allen? "You can't! He's twenty years older than me!" Paul Allen, thirty five years old. Fat, stinking rich, Paul Allen. Was that her future? To marry and lie with a man over twice her age? It occurred to her then. "...why Paul Allen?"

"He was deemed a of good genetic stock; and distantly related enough so as to prevent inbreeding," said her father quickly, "when he was asked, he said he would had no problems with it."

The situation was suspicious. Her father was the a member of the Genetic Stability department in Vault-72. What were the odds that his own daughter would find a potential husband so quickly? Especially one so rich and willing.

"Is he paying you?" Asuka's tone turned inquisitive, angry. One of Isabella and Ferdinand's Red Priests; centuries removed. Both parents had shame enough to look guilty. _Oh, no fucking way._ She ran to her room, screaming: "I hate you, I hate you."

* * *

 _April 20, 2161: 5:30 AM_

 _Vault-72: Shinji's room_

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

Shinji Ikari woke up screaming, mirroring the angry war-cries of the rockets, missiles, bombs that had fallen just over eighty four years ago. He had been having dreams of late. Visions of fire turning the earth to ash, glass; dust to dust. People dead, dying with not even an opportunity to make peace with the callous God above. Flesh feeding flames, bone into charcoal dust floating on the hot irradiated winds whipped up by nuclear explosions transforming the landscape into black, twisted glass. Shinji woke up screaming. Ten million degrees celsius. Man made stars exploding with violence enough to shock a boy into action nearly a century later.

" _Attention Vault-72, water rations will decrease by an additional litre per person per day starting this week. Please see the Overseer for additional information."_

The boy sat up in his bed, breathing heavily. A sticky mild sweat had broken, staining his pyjamas and sheets with light moisture. Not the first time nightmares had come to visit. The tritium clock sitting on his nightstand read the time as five in the morning, quite a bit earlier than Shinji had wanted to wake up. His school day didn't start for another two hours.

Sad as it was, Shinji was one of the few children in Vault-72 to live alone. Waking up to an empty room was something he was used to. He sighed, scanned his bare, lonely living quarters and pushed the warm sheets away; he had never been able to fall back asleep after nightmares.

He flipped a switch, wincing at the sudden intrusion of light. _I'll just cook some breakfast, finish some of the homework I didn't get a chance to do… maybe I'll see_ her _today._

The orphan boy didn't have many friends in school, his self-effacing nature had always been a topic of amusement for the bullies in class to capitalize on and had led to his ostracization But despite this isolations; he was in love. There was a girl. One Asuka Langley Soryu. Red haired, confident, beautiful.

But for the moment, it didn't matter. Young Ikari did not know, but today was to be a fateful day. Something would change.

* * *

 _The same day: 8:00 AM_

 _Vault-72: Class 2-A_

"The night the bombs fell through the sky…" the teacher droned on and on. An old man, hard of hearing and too decrepit to be intimidating, spoke while writing on the board; oblivious to the troubles plaguing his classroom.

A rubber band struck Shinji across the arm, stinging even through the blue and yellow vault suit he wore.

"Oww…" he rubbed at the spot he had been hit, whispering his displeasure, "please stop…"

The boy to his right smiled smugly, content at having bothered Shinji, and turned back to the front of the classroom; aping attention. It had always been like this. Bullies had always picked on Shinji, for being smaller than the other boys, for not having many friends, for living alone.

Shinji scanned the classroom, looking for red in a sea of black and brown and blonde. _Asuka…_ He had seen the girl before class had started, puffy eyed, cheeks red; had she been crying? _No, she'd never cry, she's so strong…_ Now he could only see the back of her head, hunched over a desk on the far side of the room. Soft, narrow shoulders moved up and down rhythmically. _Laughing? Crying?_ He didn't know anymore. He hoped, wanted, dreamed of her. The pale girl, skin of ivory and hair of fire; some sort of modern siren. Of course, Asuka didn't even know that Shinji existed. That was what hurt the most. Being a nonentity, having no one care enough to associate with him. _I've been no one for so long…_

"Aida?" Shinji whispered to the boy on his left. Aida Kensuke was a strange kid; considered by the majority of the class to be of a social class even lower than Shinji the Orphan. Short, bespeckled, Aida Kensuke; a nerd obsessed with the world outside of the Vault.

Aida responded, leaning over behind the stack of books on his desk. "What's up Shinji?" The two outcasts had become something close to friends, but not quite. A bond forged from the cruelty of their peers.

"Do you know why Asuka seems so sad?" he asked while turning his head from side to side, making sure no one was listening into their conversation.

"Soryu? Why do you want to know about her?"

Shinji blushed and put his head down. "It's nothing, just forget it…" The color of shame, flavor of embarrassment.

Aida pushed up his glasses, snickering all the while. "You have a crush on her?"

Shinji blushed even redder and sank lower into his seat, mortified, "it's not like that… I'm just worried about her…"

"I heard that she and her parents have been arguing. I don't know much else," the boy giggled to himself and shook his head, "honestly, why Asuka?"

* * *

 _The same day: 12:00 PM_

 _Vault-tec Headquarters: Washington D.C._

A computer terminal worked at furious speed, sending long dead signals through the desolate land. A door opened. A man smiled. The world ended all over again.

* * *

 _The same day: 12:01 PM_

 _Vault-72: Office of the Overseer_

"What the fuck do you mean the Vault is open? That's _absolutely,_ I mean _absolutely_ impossible!" a woman, young and pretty stood in a dead panic. Her small red jacket stained with coffee spilled in the commotion; Misato Katsuragi didn't care. "Even _I_ can't open the Vault doors! The only possible way for this to have happened—" Cold dread. A realization. An epiphany so terrible… So terrible that it ought to be impossible.

"You don't think he's alive?" the purple haired Overseer whispered, "the former Overseer I mean. You don't think…"

Ritsuko Akagi, trusted advisor and longstanding friend of the Overseer, nodded grimly. "You said it yourself. There's no possible way for the Vault to open on it's own. You don't even have the authorization code to do that anymore." That much was known at least. A previous Overseer had taken several important documents with him on his departure from the Vault ten years ago. At least he had closed the door on his way out.

Misato wanted a beer badly, but as Overseer she had to maintain a clear mind during time of crisis. She couldn't afford to imbibe at the moment. " _Fuck!_ It doesn't matter _why_ the Vault is open. At least not yet. We've got to run some damage control. I'm calling a meeting. _You_ can work on getting the door closed again." Misato rambled, if they couldn't get the Vault closed… That would be the end of everything. The safety of her home, _Vault-72_ , the people under _her_ protection… it would all be over.

Ritsuko pulled up a chair and sat. Head in hands, brushing hair from her head. "You know I can't do that," there was silence in the room, the dread of responsibility sewed lips shut.

"...what are we going to do then?" the Overseer paced the room, "I can't just go out there and tell them that there's nothing we to be done about this. We _have_ to get that door closed. No matter what."

The computer terminal made a noise. Some sort of notification was coming through.

"Oh god," Ritsuko leaned over and opened the message that had been sent, "it's from _him._ " Misato walked over quickly and read along:

 _To the Overseer of Vault-72:_

 _I hope those long years of my absence has not been too difficult for you. Undoubtedly you will, by now, have discovered that all is not well. Your comfortable home, open to the elements, the radiation and monsters of the Wasteland. The horror, the horror. Yes, I am well aware of horror. The cruelty of responsibility._

 _But despite what you may believe, or think to know of the Wasteland, the world above the little Heaven that is Vault-72 is not an irradiated desert full of dust and devoid of life. The last part is rather untrue. Is the fact that I have survived thirteen years in this Hell not proof?_

 _There is life on the surface, life more bright and angry than you know. It is no use describing it to you. You who will never leave your gilded casket. How fearsome must the world seem to you! Undoubtedly you are scrambling for a way to enthrone yourself atop your cairn once more. Once more to stopper yourself in the vital safety of your home._

 _Here I bring you answer. My son, Shinji Ikari is your salvation. Bring him to the surface. Tell him to search for me. I will know when this is done, and I will bury you once more._

 _A father must see his son, must he not?_

"Call the meeting Ritsuko." Misato was sweating now, moving toward the door. There was an expression of acrid anger and reluctance and duty. She now knew what she had to do.

"Where are you going? This is your job!" said the doctor angrily, "don't tell me you're avoiding your duty _now!_ "

Misato shook her head, not looking back. "This is my job. I'm going to break the news."

* * *

 _The same day: 12:30 PM_

 _Vault-72: Assembly room_

A thousand people had gathered. The announcement call had brought them together, a secular mass. The Overseer, Misato Katsuragi made her way to the podium and tapped on the microphone, causing a harsh scream of feedback through the auditorium. The crowd collectively winced, a spasm of discomfort multiplied thousandfold.

"Sorry about that folks," the Overseer spoke into the microphone, addressing the citizens of Vault-72, "haven't done this is quite a while…" The people sat respectfully, bands of blue and yellow repeating itself over and over again. "We've gathered here today because of tragedy," Misato paused giving herself a moment to think. "...Everyone here knows tragedy. We all know loss; even here, in the safety of the Vault," she addressed members of the crowd individually now.

"Mr. Pierce Faulkner lost a wife and a child last year, during an accidental fire in the mess hall," the mentioned man nodded his thanks, the confirmation that the Overseer _cared_. "Mrs. Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu left behind a daughter and husband, a little over ten years ago. We all mourn for them, still hold them close in our hearts." The sole redhead in the crowd tensed. "But the tragedies of our past must not affect our judgement in the present. We cannot lose sight of the future, we cannot lose hope." Misato took the microphone from its holder and began to pace the stage while speaking. "We all have our tragedies, and we, as a Vault must stand together to deal with them. Today is one such day."

The audience whispered to one another. Tragedy? What could warrant such a major gathering?

"Today is a day where we are all threatened. A day where the past has come to tear us apart," the ominous words caused more disquiet among the Vault dwellers. "My predecessor's predecessor, Overseer Gendo Ikari, contacted us earlier today; giving us an ultimatum." Out of the corner of her eye she caught a disturbance moving through the crowd, something pushing past the people to get to the stage. "Former Overseer Ikari has threatened _us_. Vault-72. For the last decade after his abandonment of the noble post of Overseer, he has been alive. Secretly hiding away in the Wasteland outside."

"Where is he?" the crowd parted to reveal a young boy, around fourteen years of age, nervous and sweating. "Where is my father?" his voice was strained between anxious tears and anger.

Misato beckoned him closer, parting the blue and yellow sea to allow him room to walk. "Your father is alive, somewhere in the Wasteland above us; no one can say exactly where," she took a deep breath, "which is why we have gathered today. Gendo Ikari has _opened the Vault doors!_ Just as he did ten years ago, with stolen authorization codes from his time as an Overseer, he has opened our home to the elements, the radiation, death, and danger of the world. He has put a gun to all of our heads. Even now, dust, tainted with heavy metals, and air, dried by the furnace flames of Perdition creep into our home through the front door! The door that Gendo Ikari opened."

The boy seemed to freeze. His father had opened the Vault? His father was still alive?

Someone in the crowd shouted: "how can we get it closed?"

"We can't stand around here and do nothing!"

"Silence!" the Overseer shouted, bringing calm to the crowd once more. The crowd collectively stepped back from the boy Ikari, the boy tainted by association, the boy alone for so long now reviled. "The former Overseer has given us a choice, an offer," the crowd seemed to tense all at once. "He wants his son."

Muttering started anew. Just what did the Overseer mean?

"Vault-72! The choice is yours today. On one hand we can leave the Vault open; I assure you, we will not die. Life will change, but it will go on. We will live on. On the other we can send Gendo his son! The doors will close as soon as Shinji Ikari is gone; and our safety, our way of life is _assured_."

Shinji was panicking, send _him_? Out of the Vault? Into the Wasteland, the place of fire and brimstone; the specter haunting his nightmares. _No, please no. Don't do this to me_. He spun in a circle, trying to make eye contact with people circling him. No one would meet his gaze, all stared at the ground. Did they feel pity? Shame? Maybe guilt. Damning guilt.

"The choice is yours today. All those in favor?"

A thousand hands went up and a thousand voices said affirmation.

 _Oh please, don't do this, please please please please_

The boy fell to his knees and began crying in earnest. "Don't do this! Please, I don't want to die, I don't want to go out there; I don't _want to be alone!_ " he crawled toward a woman whose head was turned to the side. "Mrs Ackerman, I babysitted your son once, remember? It was two years ago! You said I was responsible enough because I lived alone! _Please, God don't make me leave!_ " The woman walked away, the crowd swallowing her, not looking back. Shinji crept towards another member of the circle, this time a man. "Mr. Insecam! _Look at me please!_ " the man didn't look up from his shoes, "I've lived next to you for _years_ now! You've always helped me when I didn't know how to do things, _why don't you care?"_

Shinji stood abruptly and wiped his face clear of tears, streaking it red. "Why are are all of you voting yes? _You're sending me to die out there"_

 _i am going to die going to die going to die alone alone alone_

No one wanted him. A pair of arms grabbed him from behind and began to pull him away. Shinji began to scream in earnest.

"No! I'm not going, I can't go! I have things I want to do, _I'm only fourteen you can't send me off you can't you can't you can't!_ Somebody say something! They're going to kill me… someone please…" the crowd began to file out of the auditorium. Perhaps there was real guilt among the people of Vault-72, guilt that they were effectively sending a boy to his death. A cruel death in the middle of an April world, dried and burnt by nuclear sulphur fires. Guilt didn't matter. Guilt could be, and would be forgotten. The short memory of man, a blessing and curse all at once. Something to damn and save the human condition.

"I'm going too!" a voice, girlish and young, angry and prideful came from nearby.

Asuka Langley Soryu; fire made girlflesh spoke with fury and conviction. She had made her decision, firm and strong. Her parents followed closely behind, pleading with her not to go. That everything would be okay. That were was no need to die.

How ironic that in this world Shinji, who wanted nothing more than to be loved, to be cared for by a parent have to hear this. Asuka rejected the love of her parents on grounds that it was stifling. Shinji wanted nothing more than to be smothered.

"Don't leave Asuka, we love you!" her father, stepmother. It didn't matter who.

"If this is the marriage, we can annul the betrothal, it wasn't anything concrete anyways!"

The redhead whirled on the heel of her shoes and faced her parents, "don't you two understand anything? It's not about you _selling me off to the highest bidder._ It's about choice! I can't have my own fucking life here, I'm fourteen years old and you're already scheming to marry me off— I'm not a _doll_ for you to play around with. You've been treating me that way my whole life," she spoke looking at her father directly, "I'd rather _die_ out there than be a slave to you in here." With that she ran off toward the guards who were dragging along a still trashing Shinji.

Perhaps Asuka was being too rash in deciding. Perhaps, no certainly, she should have thought more of her future. But she didn't; children rarely do.

Something was changing.

* * *

 _The same day: 1:00 PM_

 _Vault-72: Atrium hall_

"I guess if we're kicking someone out, we can't really keep you in here…" Misato felt terrible, truly sympathetic to the boy and girl to be released into the world. They'd live for one, maybe two days and die; either from exposure or radiation or maybe some terrible accident with a mutated hulk of a monster. Morbid thoughts. But morbid thoughts were all she had at the moment. A way to cope with the weight of her burden. It was ultimately on her orders, her authority that these children be sent to their deaths, cruel, cruel deaths in the outside world. "What makes you want to leave anyways?" she asked the redhead.

Asuka was busy tightening a strap on the body armor she had been given. It was only out of courtesy that were be given supplies. Gendo had proven that it was _possible_ to survive in the Wasteland; how else could he have sent the message? But Misato thought it a forgone conclusion. These children would die within the week.

"My _parents_ ," she spat out, "were planning on selling me… to Paul Allen of all people! I'm only fourteen!"

"Which is exactly why you should stay in the Vault. It's a dangerous place out there. No place at all for a little girl."

The little girl in question resented that, "you're sending _him_ out. He's a wimp, too scared to die. He wouldn't even last an hour out there." Asuka prodded the boy with her foot. He had been knocked unconscious by a guard in his many struggles to escape back into the Vault proper. "Why not me?"

"I don't have a choice but to send Shinji out. They voted on it remember?"

Asuka laughed, a cold winter wind of rancor and incredulity, "that's just an excuse. It's your decision to send him out. _You're_ the Overseer. You hold the axe, you pull the trigger. It's all you."

Misato bristled, a fourteen year old girl had no business being that bitter. "What else can I do then? Should I just leave the Vault open forever? Imagine how much panic that would cause, no one's even seen the outside!" she pointed at the open entrance and bleak red-brown wasteland outside; it was almost as if God had bled out and stained the world. "I wasn't lying when I said that it would change life in the Vault."

"And is your comfort, the comfort of Vault-72 worth sending this idiot here to die?"

"Yes."

Asuka smiled bitterly, "I knew you'd say that. And I'm glad you did. You're a good Overseer; but not much of a human being."

Misato handed the younger girl two backpacks full of what food and water they could be spared. "Why are you even arguing this? You said you wanted to go anyways, if it weren't for Shinji, you'd have to stay in the Vault?"

A sigh, "I don't know, I really don't." Asuka opened one of the backpacks up and frowned. Ready eat meals. Unappetizing. "You could give us some better food you know, kind of like a last meal?" she prodded the unconscious boy again, bringing a loud moan to bear. "Hey, idiot! Why don't you speak up for yourself for once?"

No response.

"If you're that convinced you're going to die, why go in the first place? Planning for the worst case scenario means you've already given up," asked Misato.

The girl shook her head, red hair swaying, "it's not like that. Just trying to make a joke, even though I don't feel too funny right now."

"Are you afraid to die?"

Multiple scoffs of varying intensity, "of course not. I'm not afraid of anything." Asuka said it so self-assuredly that Misato believed it for a moment. Only for a moment.

"...right," the Overseer snapped her fingers and guards carried Shinji to the outdoors. Asuka followed, suppressing the urge to vomit. _I'm not afraid, just excited. I'm not going to die._

They were over the threshold now, the escorts scurried back into the safety of the Vault atrium, out of the dust of the world. A thin covering of dirt blown in by the whipping winds powdered the entrance of Vault-72. For the first time in eighty four years, the world under the world met the surface.

"I'm sorry I can't give you any guns. There aren't many to spare, you know," Misato apologized. Genuine.

"We'll be fine," she took a glance at Shinji, still unconscious, "or at least; I'll be fine."

The two women stared at each for a moment. Gazes steady.

"Think of your parents, Asuka. This is your last chance to come back. Don't throw away your life," good advice always falls on deaf ears.

Asuka shook her head. "Better me throw my life away than my parents fuck it up. At least it's my decision. I won't be a doll, _ever_."

The Overseer laughed loudly and turned around. A drink was _long_ overdue. Several feet away from the Vault doors, she spoke without turning. "Good luck."

"Thanks." A fine goodbye.

The doors closed soon after.

Asuka turned to face the world in earnest and leaned against the Vault doors, meters of thick steel and concrete and lead, painted white with the number _72_. The Wasteland for miles and miles. The afternoon sun through the clouds of ash and dust that seemed to be immortal bathed the world in cruel grey-red light. There was nothing but dust and sand, sand and dust. Empires had crumbled and man; man who had bent the world to their will had been forced into hiding through their own hubris. Asuka realized she was afraid. Very afraid.

The wind blew and the girl, feeling very small, cried.

 **AN: Done! Wrote this on a whim and I'm already liking it a lot. Expect this to be updated regularly for a while until I get more inspiration for my other fanfics. The story, factions, characters will be mostly original, so if that isn't your thing, I suggest you keep reading anyways.**

 **Hope my characterizations were okay. I actually got shivers while writing the whole scene with Shinji begging the Vault not to make him leave, lol.**

 **Thanks much.**


	2. Chapter 2

**2: Let the wind speak, here begins a new life**

 **AN: I'm pretty motivated to write this but unsure of whether it's good or not. Please review to let me know.**

 _April 20, 2161: 4:00 PM_

 _The Wasteland: what used to be Virginia_

The dim red-grey sunlight shone weakly, lukewarmly on the two children traversing the hills and graveyard of the world. Rusted twists of metal, identifiable as cars only by the vague shape and memory of their history book, were scattered across a faded black pathway, wide enough to hold sixteen of these ancient machines in procession. A superhighway, though they did not know it.

"What do you think ' _Martinsburg'_ is?" Asuka asked and kicked a small metal object, around the size of a fist and vaguely circular, to Shinji. She referred to a faded green sign on the side of the road.

He tried kicking the object back to her, but missed, cursing himself for his clumsiness. "I read that the signs told people back then how to get to places, using those— what're they called— automobiles? I think Martinsburg is the name of a place."

Asuka sighed for the _n_ th time in the few hours they had been out of the Vault, exploring the world was much less exciting than she had thought. "So those heaps of junk are _automobiles_? As in they used to move really fast and get people from point A to point B?" she gesticulated vaguely while speaking, drawing imaginary lines from one spot to another. "You wanna go check one out?"

The boy nodded and the pair made to one of the dead cars, a century removed from usage, they had in many cases become coffins for drivers in the past; baked and melted and warped by nuclear heat and heavy time, these automobiles were akin to time capsules, contents disturbing.

"Oh God…" Asuka put a hand to her mouth and gasped lightly. The car was airtight. Glass had flash melted rather than shattered, fusing to the frame of the door. The metal of the car door had likewise become conjoined with the body of the vehicle. The handle wouldn't even move. That wasn't why Asuka had been surprised however. There were bodies inside; but not the type you would expect.

Skeletons, heaps of sunbleached bones in the rough shape of a human being, left behind after eighty four years of rot and time had taken their toll on soft weak flesh. Stains on the seat, left behind by the processes of rot and decay. That was what Asuka had been expecting to see. Something inert and so far removed from humanity that it could be mistaken for a morbid children's toy; instead, inside was obscenity. Perfectly preserved. Three bodies. _Mother, father, child. Mary, Joseph, Jesus._ The horror, the horror. Oh God, the horror. The radiation had done this. The initial sunburst of the Apocalypse had released untold Sieverts of gamma waves and neutron particles, destroying chromosomes, rearranging DNA sequences. The language in which life itself was written, rewritten. Coupled with the heat, of course decay wouldn't happen. All bacterial life to commence decomposition had been killed, the inside of the car perfectly sterile. So when the hot suns dropped to surface and had melted the seams of the car into perfectly fluid joints, none of the scars of welding visible, nothing; no microscopic bacterium had managed to enter the car. An impervious membrane eighty four years in the making.

The driver could not be distinguished as male or female, even with the flesh perfectly preserved. There had been too much melting, cooking done; parts burnt from the extreme heat, once smooth skin turned angry red by the intense lights of the bombs that had exploded kilometers away. The flesh was still flesh, despite it having been made heavy and leprous by the acrid fumes of the melting vinyl and plastic interior of the car. The acrylic design on the T-shirt had turned into a slurry of colors, red with blue and blue with white and pinks and purples in between it all. Asuka could not bear to look at the child in the backseat.

"Let's go, I might puke," she turned around with her eyes closed before Shinji could catch up to her. Sparing him the pain of having to see the insides of the car-coffin was common courtesy. "You don't want to see this." Deep breaths to calm down. _It's nothing, just a dream, can't be real._

Shinji blanched, "is it that bad?"

"...we're getting off of this ' _interstate 81'_ ," Asuka referred to another one of the flaking signs, "I don't want to even be _near_ a car right now." the girl tried not to show it, but she was badly shaken. They made their way away from the cars, toward the edge of the black road, made of asphalt, a strange substance neither Vault-dwellers had ever seen before. Home to them was of smooth grey concrete, not this black sheet of tar and stone. The bombs had turned the roads into soups for a while, boiling bowls of black held back only by the waist high concrete safety barricades on either side of the streets. It was smooth in most places, pockmarked periodically by the thick bubbles of tar that had frozen into reality many decades ago.

The boy pointed to a sign off in the distance, clambering over the safety barricade to the ditch that bordered the superhighway. "Hey, if that sign said ' _Martinsburg 30 miles'_ doesn't that mean that a city is thirty miles away?"

Asuka kicked a dead branch and was surprised at the weight of it. It had petrified long ago, condemned to eternity. "Why would we even want to go to one of those old-time cities? No one would live there anymore."

"They might have some food leftover…"

The two had left the highway behind now, but thoughts of entire families melted then mummified in all their gory splendor made Asuka's stomach wretch about terribly. "We have food enough with us. We should probably be looking for a place to sleep," the girl was right. Although the sun could not be seen through the thick layer of clouds, the meager light flitting through the nebulous sky was growing smaller and smaller. It would be night soon.

"Here's a good a place as any I suppose…" Asuka sat down on the ground, it was relatively clear there and plenty of firewood was available, splintered trees made up the environment. Old wood, cured and baked bone hard by years of sun. "Go gather some wood," she ordered, "even a loser like you shouldn't be able to screw that up."

He bent over and began to gather branches, careful so as not to get a splinter. Several minutes later he had a heavy armful and placed it at Asuka's feet. "Is this enough?" he asked. Neither teenager really knew how much firewood was needed, or even how to start a fire. They didn't even have trees in the Vault.

"Yeah sure," Asuka didn't look up from her searching, she was certain that a firestarter had been given to them… "Got it!" A small black rod and an even smaller knife, not good for much else but striking the flint. "I'm pretty sure that this is a firestarter, we read about them once…" Asuka gave an experimental strike to the cylindrical flint, jumping at the sight of sparks. "Alright, we can start a fire!" she cheered.

Shinji quickly made a little pile of the twigs, a little bird nest to hold the red egg that would hopefully hatch into a fire, warm fire. "Have you done this before, Asuka?" he asked.

The girl tossed her hair to the side haughtily. "You don't think I can do it?" she laughed, "oh ye of little faith… Even cavemen were able to do this! Should be a piece of cake."

* * *

 _The same day: 7:30 PM_

 _The Wasteland: what used to be Virginia_

The thin blue and yellow Vault suits and body armor that both Shinji and Asuka wore did little to protect from the chill of spring.

No warmth between the two. Only a thin, but large blanket to stave off the night cold. A fire had proven to be impossible. Asuka sat on a log, teeth chattering, blanket completely swaddling her. "L-light a fire idiot," she shivered violently, "it's getting cold." She had given up on lighting a fire fairly early on, complaining that the flint and steel hurt her hands.

He was trying, failing badly, hands shaking far too much to be able to start a fire. "I c-can't do it," he said. Asuka might have been cold, but Shinji was _freezing_. He didn't even have a blanket to keep him warm. Damn the Overseer and her stinginess… "I've never done this before."

"Be a man!" Asuka yelled, "it's your responsibility to start a fire. Don't you know anything?" she thought of the romanticised life of the savage. History before history had been erased by fire.

For the first time Shinji felt resentment toward his unlikely companion. Just who did she think she was? He didn't say anything, just kept his angry gaze toward the tinder that _he_ had gathered, glowering as if his angry gaze could make the dry pine needles and twigs catch ablaze. "...you could help out instead of just sitting there," he muttered under his breath.

Unfortunately for him, Asuka heard. "What was that? I didn't hear you very well. You should speak _up_ ," she said. Shinji was intimidated even though the girl was huddled into a ball under the blanket, only her head peeking out; almost like a turtle. He saw she shudder violently. The night was growing dark, if he did not ignite fire soon…

"I didn't say anything," his voice was hurried now, worry coloring his tone. He struck the flint especially hard, sending a shower of red heat into the small nest of tinder. " _Yes!_ " Shinji nearly cried with joy as the dead pine needles caught fire, he covered the the spark from the wind with his hands, blowing carefully trying to curry the spark into a blaze.

"You got it?" Asuka looked up from her comfortable position on the log, shedding the blanket quickly. "Holy shit! You actually did…" she saw the rising smoke and her voice turned incredulous, then jealous. Why had _he_ been able to do it when _she_ hadn't? The redhead ran over to the boy, who was shivering of excitement now instead of cold, with blanket in hand. "Good job loser," it was as close to a compliment that she would offer.

Shinji heard the insult but paid it no mind. He was ecstatic, they had a fire. The boy ran the burning nest of twigs over to the larger pile of sticks, placing the life giving heat carefully, as if he were handling a newborn. _I did it!_ And just in time too. The night had come in earnest and there was little moonlight to work with; only a hazy spot in the cloud cover where the faintest bit of luminescence came to bare.

The pair sat down near the fire, hunching close to it, backing off when the smoke became unbearable, and hunching close again when they felt too cold. An amicable silence for a while.

"Hey, loser?" Asuka asked, not taking her eyes off the quivering fire.

"Yeah?" the boy didn't know what to say. He had admired, lusted after, loved the girl from afar in Vault-72. Now thrust into the harshness of the world, having just succeeded in securing their survival, he found himself rendered speechless by her softly lit silhouette in the ghostly light of the fire and moon.

She handed him a package from one of the backpack, motioning him to eat. "Did you expect it to be this hard?" she asked. It wasn't much of a question, the answer was obvious.

"I expected worse to be honest, mutants and raiders; that sort of thing."

The two had only seen the bones of civilization, not any signs of existing.

"Why'd you decide to leave the Vault? I mean, you didn't have to…" his question was bitter from the memory of having been effectively condemned to die in exile.

Asuka chewed around the mouthful of the dry ration bar that claimed to be flavored like a strawberry. She had never had _real_ strawberries before, so she couldn't exactly compare the two… "There's just some things that you _can't_ live with, you know what I mean?"

He didn't know. "I don't understand too well…"

The girl huffed, turning to face Shinji angrily, "of course you don't understand, you're not _me_ ," she bared her teeth, attempting to look fierce and intimidating. Shinji just thought she looked cute. "My parents were going to sell me off."

"They can do that?" Shinji scratched his head, confused. He supposed arranged marriages were quite common in the Vault, but never that spouses could be bought… "How does that even work?"

Asuka spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child, "look… You have a girl— almost a woman— pretty and smart and all around great, I'm talking about me if you didn't notice, and you have a guy. A guy who's older, richer, and horny enough to buy himself a child bride… Pays off the Genetics labs to falsify that the two are suitable partners genetically and pays off the parents too." She was still bitter.

"I didn't… Asuka, I'm so sorry."

She whirled on him, "don't you dare feel sorry for me, _idiot_. I'm better than you in every possible way. The day you starting pitying me is that day I die." She ended her short tirade rather abruptly. There was a long silence here where no one knew what to say.

* * *

 _April 21, 2161: 4:00 AM_

 _Cothren Town: a small village, population:100, outside of Martinsburg_

A man, one Cooper Hausman, deathly drunk and needing to shit badly, staggered toward an outhouse. It had been a happy day and the majority of the town had gathered to celebrate something special, very special; personally important to Mr. Hausman. But whatever the cause of the celebration may have been, no matter how important the reason for celebration was, Cooper could not ,for the life of him, remember _why_. He was far too drunk.

He tripped over his shoes, old mustard yellow boots covered in mud. "Fuck," said Cooper, picking himself off the ground, brushing dirt from his shirt, "I'm so drunk…" Cooper felt the hotness of vomit, the pink and heady flavor of alcohol coming through his mouth a second time and swallowed, eyes tearing as he forced his own vomit down before it could spew. "Fuck me…"

At least he was at the outhouse now, a rickety building put up in haste several years ago when the old one had begun to overflow. There was no running water in Cothren, and the village did not have the caps available to procure better amenities. He walked up the hill the outhouse was located on, half running- half loping toward his destination.

The door opened and strangeness stepped out. Was it a man? Was it even a human?

"What are you?" Cooper asked, confused, voice slurred by drink. He knew everyone in the town, there were so few inhabitants that it was impossible _not_ to know everyone; but this man… Cooper had never seen before. It was an unforgettable face: bald, pale—unnaturally pale, lashless eyes, he was huge huge huge and carried a distinct aura of _wrongness_. The smooth dome of the man's head shone dumbly like a hubcap in the weak moonlight.

The stranger laughed, a jolly tittering sound like that seemed far too light and airy to belong to a man over seven feet tall. "I am the Word, and in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I was in the beginning with God. All things were made through I, and without I not any thing made that was made."

Cooper was too drunk to be aware of, or care about the man's dramatic tone. "Well Word, you should've come earlier… we was havin' ourselves a party… don't really remember 'bout what, but t'was quite a party."

Another laugh, "My name is not ' _Word'_ ," he paused for a moment before continuing, "you asked _what_ I was, not whom."

"Well then mister, what's yer name? And what be yer business in Cothren?"

"Most call me the Judge. I am here to do just what my title implies," the Judge's voice was happy almost, calm and collected, a certain way about which he spoke implied intelligence thought to be long lost. Yet another thing stolen by the nuclear fires.

Cooper scratched his head and tilted it, "you don't seem like no judge, what're you a judge of; chickens?" the drunk laughed at his own joke, humor amplified by alcohol.

The Judge moved closer and Cooper noticed dumbly that in the man's hand was an axe, glistening with something dark. But he stepped backwards in fear after seeing what was clutched in the Judge's left. Hair, a long fistful of black hair that streamed down to a dark red, dripping _something_ that hung suspended next to the pale man's pant cuff.

"What're you a judge of!" Cooper backpedaled, a rough, quick crab walk, "Who the Hell are you?" Somehow the thick cloud cover parted, just for a moment parted, and let loose a stream of moonlight that hit the outhouse _just_ right, illuminating the cramped bathroom in a ghostly white light showing the horror within. A woman, someone very close to Cooper, raped and bloodied; the moonlight glinted off the ring on her hand. The dark red dripping something that the Judge held was the dead woman's scalp. Cooper scrambled to his feet to _run_ and realized that the celebration earlier was in honour of his very own wedding _._

The Judge strode forward briskly, his long legs quickly catching up to the drunk man, dropping his axe and grabbing the man by the shirt collar. "I am a judge of men; and you are a _man_ ," he thrust the obscene scalp into Cooper's trembling hands.

"Please man, I ain't caused you no harm… I just got married today—"

"And you'll join your wife soon," the Judge smiled mealy red lips revealing huge white teeth like tombstones.

* * *

 _The same day: 9:30 AM_

 _The Wasteland: Shinji/Asuka camp_

It wasn't quite the sound of birds chirping, but it woke them the same. The slide of a gun being pulled back. A boot kicking around the remnants of the fire.

"How dumb can you get… hey Tobin! Bring some rope!"

Both Shinji and Asuka shot up to attention. The voice of human beings other than themselves; something they had never expected to hear. But the message was ominous.

"Who are you?" Asuka asked bluntly. The man in question was dressed in a motley collection of leather and straps, guns hanging at his waist in addition to the handgun he held. "Don't point that at us!" Asuka tried to shy away from the direction the barrel was pointing but was only rewarded by the sound of artificial thunder going off nearby. The bullet traveled between the newly awoken teenagers; sometime during the night they had ended up next to each other. Warmth gathering warmth.

"Be careful with that! What's your problem?" Asuka screamed, angry.

The man's companion, the one called Tobin had come carrying rope and two thick collars. This man was thinner and had yellowing skin. "Looks like you made a good catch here Donny," he remarked looking Asuka over with a sick grin on his face.

"Don't I always?" the newly named Donny laughed back, ignoring Asuka's indignant protests.

Shinji stayed quiet as a terrible realization came over him. _Collar, ropes… slavery?_ They had learned about slavery during history lessons in the Vault, learned that it had been abolished hundreds of years before the Last War had started. "Asuka," he whispered, "stay quiet."

The redhead turned from the two conversing slavers to Shinji, she didn't show as much discretion. "What? Why? We've finally met some people, it's all gonna be okay now!" although Asuka had the highest scores in the class in every subject in the Vault, she was remarkable naive at times.

Tobin stepped forward and hit Asuka across the face, not too harshly, but enough to leave a painful red mark. The girl slumped to the ground and cradled her face. She had never been hit before.

"What the fuck is your problem? First you ignore me, then you hit—"

The man made another striking motion with his hand and Asuka flinched. "Slaves don't talk back. At least your friend knows what's up."

The word slave triggered something within Asuka. She stood up ready to fight. "We're not slaves! Fuck you!" she ran forward to fight but was held back.

Shinji held her by the arm and whispered: "Asuka… they have guns." The boy was right. Asuka's stomach fell and the situation sank in.

The sallow slaver chortled and moved to tie the two children up. "That expression is priceless, I wonder what she'll be like when she's been on her back for a couple hours."

 _No no no no, this can't be happening._ Asuka thought to herself. Wasn't that what she had been fleeing in the first place? "You two are joking right? You can't actually be taking us —" She was hit again, this time harder. The slaver's old leather glove came in a backhand arc and hit her hard enough to draw blood. The redhead staggered back and looked angry enough to kill if it wasn't for the gun in the man's hand.

"Shut the fuck up if you know what's good for you. I _hate_ mouthy slaves."

 _Fuck fuck fuck fuck_ both children knew they were screwed. They had been ambushed, found with their pants down so to speak. They were unarmed, in a strange place being accosted by strange people.

"Fucking say something Shinji!" Asuka screamed at the boy next to her, "say something, do _anything_! Tell them we aren't slaves!" But in her attention to her fellow Vault-dweller she had taken her eyes off the slaver.

One of the men ran forward and tackled her to the ground, filling her nose with the smell of old blood and unwashed man. Sweat and feces and dust and death.

"Get off of me! You can't do this!" she thrashed about as her hands were pinned above her head. The man was much stronger than her; she was far too easily overpowered.

"Shut up!" the man spat in her face and the hot, dirty spittle trickled into her eye. Asuka began to wail.

Shinji had enough of it and jumped on the man's back, pulling at hair and hitting at whatever exposed flesh he could find. "Get off of her!" a lucky groping scratch hit the man's eye. The man rolled off of Asuka, clutching at his face and allowing the girl to make a run for it.

"Fuck!" the man's partner shouted and ran after the redhead, not caring about the injuries of his ally. Shinji was just a bit faster. Youth and life in the Vault, eating and growing regularly had led him to be slightly faster than the slaver who had spent his life scrounging for food. He caught up and tackled the man to the ground, not caring of the consequences. Faster he may have been, but stronger he was not.

"Fucking brat!" the slaver turned onto his back, facing Shinji and pistol whipping him. The boy's face erupted with color, red gushing from his nose and conscious turning a hazy black. But despite the pain, Shinji was glad. _Asuka will be safe now…_ he passed out.

A hundred meters away, ducking behind trees and wreckages, Asuka didn't turn back, she just kept running, unwilling to be captured. Who even cared about the loser?

* * *

 _The same day: 10:00 AM_

 _With Shinji and the slavers_

He woke up a particularly hard kick; the blunt tip of the heavy pair of boots that the slaver whose eye he had scratched thudded against the small of his back, knocking the wind from the prone boy.

"Fucking _faggot_ boy," the man's eye was slightly red from the attempted gouging but other than that, the man was fine. "You cost us that redhead, that sweet piece of ass would have went for _thousands_ of caps."

Shinji didn't say anything. He wanted to scream so badly, they had done quite a number on his while he had been asleep, his injuries were mostly superficial however. Plenty of painful blue bruise flowers blooming on his skin for sure. "...Are you going to kill me?" he said awkwardly, his tongue felt swollen and the inside of his cheek was bleeding profusely, staining his teeth a terrible red. One of the strikes delivered had been to Shinji's open chin. A good portion of his cheek had been bitten through and swallowed.

"Kill you?" the slaver scoffed, angry apparently sated, "we gotta make _some_ money, especially after you helped that girl run away," the man scowled. "We'll probably sell you, probably won't go for as much as that red haired girlie, but you're young, thin; I bet if you grew your hair you'd look like a girl. A lot of people dig that…" the slaver digressed into a long speech on the depravities of certain buyers that horrified Shinji.

The boy swallowed the bloody spittle that had gathered in his mouth, a huge mistake. The taste was vile, full of iron and salt; but the worst was the collar. The movement of his throat bulging while swallowing had caused the ironband of the slave collar to cut painfully into his throat. He gagged and completed the swallow.

The slaver, Tobin, Shinji remembered, seemed to find this all very amusing. "You like your collar, boy? You'll get it off when we sell ya," the man bent down over the tied up boy and flicked a finger against the metal collar. "It's a pretty clever piece of pre-war technology. You get too far from me, or I die before I can disarm that thing, and it'll blow up. There's a shaped explosive on the inside of that collar. It'll just blow your head clean off. Really messy. Trust me, I've seen it before."

Shinji turned green and squirmed, both the ropes around his wrists and ankles and the collar around his neck hurt terribly. He looked up at his captor to see the man eating one of the ready-made-meals from the Vault.

"Hey kid, this stuff tastes like shit. What is it?"

"It's a," Shinji swallowed more blood and felt more pain. The sucking motion that swallowing made tugged at the huge rags of flesh on the inside of his mouth. "I think that one is supposed to be chicken."

The slaver made a face, "chicken? Man it's pretty bad."

"Well, it doesn't actually taste like that. That's just a preserved version for long term storage. They taste pretty good when it's fresh."

"You've had chicken before?"

Shinji nodded as best he could, speaking was difficult. "I grew up in a Vault."

The slaver didn't look surprised. "I figured, you and the girl both had those stupid uniforms on. Why're you out here? Shouldn't you be all snug in your hole in the ground?" the slaver sounded jealous.

"They kicked me out," Shinji said sadly, "they kicked me out and closed the door."

"And the girl?"

"She left on her own, some trouble with her parents I think," the slaver bent down and poured some water in Shinji's mouth which he drank gratefully, trying his best to clear the taste of blood.

The slaver was shaking his head. "What an idiot. You had that big, safe home and you choose to leave. That girl… bet she regrets it now!" he laughed meanly.

* * *

 _The same day: 12:00 PM_

 _Asuka being chased by a slaver_

They had been running for quite a while now. Both Asuka and the ugly, tall slaver. In their lungs had settled a heavy weight of fatigue.

"I'm going to fucking _rape_ you to death little girl!" the man panted out, "when I catch you, you're fucking _dead_." Not the greatest motivation to stop running.

Asuka was having an easier time of escaping than the slaver was having chasing. Younger, more agile, and more motivated, the girl maintained a fairly sizeable lead of about twenty feet. Had the slaver shot at her, she would probably have been downed much earlier on; but the man seemed reluctant to, maybe he didn't want to damage the goods?

So Asuka ran on. She didn't know where. Only that she was alone and being chased; a fate worse than death at her heels and a pain worse than fire growing in her muscles, lungs, everywhere. _Fuck, why won't this guy just give up?_ She vaulted over a fallen tree trunk gracefully, a sort of post-apocalyptic hurdle jump.

There would be no end to this chase. It would be determined who could run faster and longer. A race where everything was on the line for Asuka.

Her stomach dropped, the trees were beginning to thin, no more huge dead wooden monoliths, now only thin splinter saplings. Through the gaps in the forest cover she could see another person. _Is it another slaver?_ Just what were the odds of this? Meeting another person, an unknown person during her escape. Could he help? It was a coin toss. The mystery figure could be just as dangerous as the man chasing her, maybe even more so.

Asuka placed her bet and put on an extra burst of speed, the forest around her a brown and grey blur of color. The gap between slaver and her lengthened.

"Hey! You there!" her calls were interspersed by deep pants as she tried to regain her breath. "Help me, please! I'll do anything!" she was still fairly far away, perhaps another fifty feet until she reached the mystery figure who was still walking on, head turned the other direction, no sign of whether or not they had heard Asuka.

The slaver must have seen the figure as well, for he started shooting, trying to end any and all possibility Asuka had for outside help.

It was at the first gunshot that the figure turned. It was a man. In an instant a hand was outstretched and a thunderclap sounded. He had shot with the confidence of a man who had practiced the draw a million times before, and Asuka knew the slaver chasing her to be no more.

She collapsed, heaving and the man drew closer. She couldn't see much of him. The sunlight was weak, but it was there and it was shining into her eyes.

"You okay little girl?" the man, no boy, Asuka could see now had reached her and offered her his free hand, his left still holding his enormous handgun. It had a scope on it; who needs a scope on a revolver?"

She still couldn't speak, so winded she was, but she took the hand and the boy helped her sit up. He was closer now and Asuka saw that he was strangely dressed, or at least as strangely dressed as the slavers had been; maybe everyone in the Wasteland dressed strangely? He wore a white shirt, several sizes too large and not fully buttoned, revealing a somewhat muscular chest. His pants were brown, baggy, and were rolled up mid shin; held up by a red sash. Shoes were wooden, with two slats on the bottom elevating him three inches to a height of around six feet one. Even though he was unshaven and his black hair swept back was growing rather long, Asuka could tell that her savior was probably five to six years older than she.

"Thanks for helping me out, I owe you one," she was truly grateful. She finally stood with the boy's help. "What's your name?"

The boy gave her a searching look and spoke. Apparently she had been deemed harmless or something close, "Call me Vespa."

 **AN: I worked pretty hard on this chapter, it's actually 5:03 AM when I'm writing this note, so please review.**

 **Would you all like me to make a stat page for the characters? (as in with SPECIAL and perks and so on)**

 **How did you like the Judge? He's not an OC, he's actually from another book.**

 **Vespa is an OC. I'll try to keep him as realistic as possible.**

 **I would like specific feedback on the scene with the Judge if possible; maybe also the scene where Asuka looks into the car. Hopefully next chapter comes out in a couple of weeks. Thanks!**


	3. Chapter 3

**3: Et in Arcadia Ego**

 **AN: So the Judge is a character from the novel** _ **Blood Meridian**_ **by Cormac McCarthy; I feel he really fits in with the whole vibe.**

 _April 21, 2161: 3:00 PM_

 _Asuka and Vespa_

"You really are a shitty person," he said it so easily, so matter-of-fact that it had to be true. Asuka winced.

"What could I have done? They had guns and they were bigger than us," she complained, "besides, that idiot wasn't even my friend. He never got anything right, even while we were in the Vault." The two had been walking for some time now, telling each other of the different worlds they had come from.

"This Shinji, you're saying he couldn't do anything right? He saved your life didn't he?" Vespa asked, smirking.

Asuka had no real answer. "I… no he didn't, _you_ did. You're the one who shot that guy back there," she glanced at him through the corner of his eye.

Each step Vespa took made clinking noises from the ransacked Caps he had taken from the slaver's body. "That might be true; but that wouldn't have happened without that Shinji kid." The man blew upwards, folding his lower lip above his upper, directing the air to push his hair from his eyes.

"What am _I_ supposed to do about it? It's not like I asked him to save me," Asuka found herself feeling something hot and unfamiliar, a twisting of the heart in the form of guilt.

"People never ask to be saved, not really. They might beg or something, but it's never _real_. Never true. Deep down everyone knows that they get what they deserve."

"How can you say that? Haven't you ever asked, haven't you ever hoped for someone to save you?"

"Yeah. Doesn't mean anyone came," the man looked toward the sky, the dim, hazy sky, "you said you were from a Vault, right?" Asuka nodded. "Here's the first thing you have to learn about the Wasteland then; don't get your hopes up. It's better that way. Rely on yourself before turning for help."

Asuka stepped forward into Vespa's path, turning around to face him. "I can rely on _you_ right? Even though I didn't know you, I asked for help and you gave it. Doesn't that disprove your theory right there?"

Vespa stopped and thought, arms crossed and fingers tapping, before he finally came to a concluding sigh. "Yeah, I did help you. I don't know why; but I did," he seemed to concede Asuka's point before continuing, "but what does that say about your friend you left behind? You counted on him to save you and he _did_. Can he count on you?"

There was a long silence for a while. Guilt came over Asuka anew, a sickening feeling in her stomach; sure Shinji was a total idiot… but he _had_ saved her.

"...Yeah, he can count on me. I owe him that much," she shuddered at the memory of the slavers, their cruel ropes and sinister leers, the threats literal and implied; the violation, the slavery. What would they do to Shinji?

"You're going to go save him? Buy him out maybe? Remember, he _is_ a slave now."

"Where do they take slaves?" The unbidden question of _what do they did to slaves_ remained unasked.

Vespa's answer seemed prepared, "the biggest slave trading site, biggest city, for miles is Old Hope, what used to be called Ocean City. We're heading there now."

"Why are _you_ going?"

"Job to do."

Man and girl walked across the dead, wind scoured plains toward the dim horizon.

* * *

 _The same day: same time_

 _A slave caravan_

The butt of a rifle hit Shinji in the back of the head, sending lights and even _sounds_ across his vision. Not a good sign. He still tasted blood in his mouth, leftovers from the beating earlier that day. When the slaver who had caught him, Tobin, realized that his partner wasn't coming back, the blows had started all over again all the way back to the slave caravan.

" _Move_ faggot."

The bomb collar made swallowing difficult, so Shinji spat at the ground, earning him an additional hit from the rifle butt. Needless to say, it was miserable among the slaves. None were willing to talk, perhaps out of fear but more likely out of hunger and thirst. Shinji saw the chapped lips, bloated stomachs coupled with flaring ribcages and realized that he too, was beginning to grow hungry. Only God knew what these people, slaves, human property were going through. So long had they been chained that their spirits themselves seemed anchored to the ground, made heavy by despair and suffering.

 _At least Asuka is okay._ Shinji had known all too well that he would not have been able to get away when he had tackled the slaver to the ground but had done it anyways. He didn't particularly know why but the things that the slavers had threatened, promised to do to Asuka… none of it sat well with him. The redhead birthed in him feelings he didn't know what to do with. Terrible, confusing feelings of nervous anxiousness whenever he thought back to her long legs and… Shinji wasn't in the mood to think about that. He wasn't in the mood to think about anything really. Maybe that was the way to survive in the Wasteland; don't think. The human mind was the greatest enemy really. Kill the mind, kill the soul and you could accomplish anything.

Shinji, along with most other people, even those people hardened by the Wasteland, were not so much Hyperborean as to kill the super-ego. Guilt was a powerful deterrent. Even the most terrible killers had a line, however far it may have been drawn, that they weren't willing to cross unless pushed past it. Too bad for Shinji that slavery didn't fall past that line. It was a way of life to the slavers; the way they payed for their bread, the beds they slept on, the women and men they bedded. Life built on misery begets more misery.

Several time units passed in silence. Only soft cries and the clinking of chains like strange windchimes marked its passing. The sun seemed hung unnaturally high in the sky, even this late in the afternoon. Shinji, growing bored, tired, unstimulated except for the red chaff of the manacles and dragging of the weighty shackles, spoke aloud.

"Um… could anyone tell me where we're going?" He braced himself for more blows, but was surprised when none came, instead was a response from behind him.

The voice was familiar to him, even if it was a bit unwelcome. Tobin, the slaver who had caught him spoke. "We're headed to Old Hope, couple days march south."

An ominous name for an ominous future. Was there no _new_ Hope? Would Shinji, would the slaves, be condemned without anything to look forward to save the hopes of the past? The old hopes, dead ones killed by a world so callous as to murder on whim. A dark name for a dark place.

"What sort of place is it?" He received a hit on the head for his question, but not quite as hard as it could have been.

The slaver spat on the ground and spoke, "it's a big place. Biggest population center on the Eastern Coast I hear. Lot of water, right next to the Atlantic Ocean it is."

Shinji had yet to have exposure to great bodies of water; there were no bathtubs in the Vault's, water was too precious a commodity to be wasted like that. "What's it like? The ocean I mean, I've never seen one."

Tobin seemed to think for a moment, Shinji could only get a good look at the slaver's dirty shoes, the collar round his neck was so heavy that he couldn't quite lift his head anymore. The dozens of other slaves in the chain gang had similar poses in varying degrees of prostration.

"Salty. It tastes salty and it smells salty. I heard a man, a _very_ strange man, say once that the ocean grew deeper and deeper everyday. That the ocean was really a pool of all the tears people had shed throughout the years," Tobin spoke quietly and seemed to chuckle to himself, "that guy was one crazy motherfucker," Shinji felt eyes on him and the slaver's tone grew serious, deadly serious. "You'll probably be bought there."

The boy felt curious as to what his _possible_ (Shinji refused to give up all hope just yet, perhaps Asuka would come to help) life would be as a slave. "What can I expect?" he asked aloud, tone curious but still deferential.

The slaver rubbed his chin while tapping his bludgeon against his thigh. "When I talked to Captain Glanton yesterday; he had half a mind to have you killed on the spot," Tobin said it so casually and Shinji blanched, "he decided against it though. 'If Donny died, that's his fault' he ended up saying. In terms of where you'll be sold to… Probably a brothel of some sort; those usually aren't very picky about who they take."

Shinji cringed and dread filled his heart anew. "Are you serious?" His voice pitched upwards at the end of his question.

"Yeah. That's what happens to most kids your age," the slaver sounded sad, almost sympathetic, "brothels are always willing to buy."

Shinji looked toward Tobin with pleading eyes, "isn't there any _other_ place? Couldn't you sell me anywhere else?"

The slaver actually chuckled at this, "I'm not the one to decide. Even if I was, I'm trying to make money here; whoever pays the most will be the one to get you."

"Is there anyway for me to get out of this?"

"You'd need a lot of caps, kid. Slaves; especially young ones go for a lot."

Shinji fell silent thinking on his meager possessions that had been taken away from him during his capture. There wasn't anything particularly of value; just food and water, which, while valuable, would not cover his price.

But then, a thought. There was _something_ that Shinji could give the slavers. Something, _somewhere_ that only one other person in the Wasteland knew how to get to.

Shinji craned his head upwards staring at the back of Tobin's head.

"I have something you might want to know."

* * *

 _The same day: 8:00 PM_

 _Asuka and Vespa: campsite_

"How much further do we think we have to go?" Asuka sat near the campfire, shivering. Her escape from the slavers, made in haste, had required her to leave her supplies behind; including the blanket that had kept her warm at night. She had only the small fire in front of her and the skintight Vault suit to stave away the cold.

Her fatefully met traveling companion sat across from her, bundled in several jackets and blankets, looking unbearably comfortable. He held his massive handgun in his right hand, finger perpetually near the trigger. There was little trust between the two.

"Two to three days walking. Probably more," said Vespa absentmindedly. "There's a couple things we'd have to go past, but I'm certain this is the fastest way to get to Old Hope."

"What's it like there?" Asuka had never been to a city before.

"Red. People call it Always Autumn sometimes."

"Why 'Always Autumn'?"

A blanket was thrown her way, falling dangerously near the campfire, but Asuka dashed forward and saved it from burning just before a crackling log sent orange sparks in a miniature starburst.

He smiled a little, his teeth slightly crooked and glinting in the firelight. "The trees there are always red and orange, a little yellow. Brown. I hear some chemical spill from a destroyed factory fucked everything up all those years ago. It used to be a forest you know. Lots of trees around there."

"I thought it was near the ocean, isn't that what you said earlier?"

Vespa poked around the fire with a stick, sending ash and smoke into the air. "Misspoke. The ocean is near the forest. Guess why?"

Asuka couldn't very much think of a reason why. All those geography lessons back in the Vault had taught her that large forests tended to avoid the immediate shoreline.

Seeing that the redhead stayed silent, unable to admit her ignorance, Vespa continued. "The bombs fell, non-nuclear in this case, on a city called Virginia Beach. Changed the entire shoreline. And now you have Old Hope, Always Autumn, whatever you want to call it, caught between a mountain and a cliff. Facing the ocean. Bordered by red maple trees, all of them bleeding sap. The air is salty sometimes when the wind blows in from the sea. Other times it's sweet."

Neither of them said anything for a while. The wind blew softly and the flames danced with it. The moon above shone high and cruel.

"That sounds beautiful."

* * *

 _The same day: 10:00 PM_

 _A slave caravan_

"You're telling the truth aren't you?"

Shinji was in a tent now, kneeling. In front of him, John Glanton, leader of the merry band of slavers that had taken him captive. A heavy boot prodded him in the shoulder.

"Is this the truth?"

The heavy bomb collar made it impossible to nod. Shinji had to make do with moving his entire torso in an up and down motion.

"It's the truth."

The two stared at each other. Glanton was tall and lean. Dry like jerky. He wore an old tattered flannel with missing buttons, nicotine stains and burn holes interspersed throughout. He broke his stare off and jerked his head to the side, motioning Tobin to undo Shinji's bomb collar.

The boy sighed in relief and newfound comfort, finally able to take large gulping breaths. Even though the air was tainted with the strange, foul smell of dozens of starving, dying slaves; it tasted clean and good.

"Does this mean I'm free to go?" Shinji asked, even though he had no idea where he was, or what he could do in the Wasteland, he wanted to get as far away as possible from the slavers. Glanton looked dangerous, they all did.

"Of course not," Glanton took a plug of a dark resinous substance from his pocket and tore away a small section of it, chewing on the dark mass. "I don't believe you." He sat down in one of the two rickety folding chairs and motioned Shinji to do the same opposite of him. "I assume you think what you just told us is worth your freedom?"

The boy nodded, "yeah, that was the idea."

"What's stopping me from putting you back in chains? You've already told us where Vault-72 is. You just gave away your bargaining chip."

Shinji blanched in awful realization. He had nothing to give anymore. It was out of desperation he had said something. The awful discomfort of the chains, the heavy breathing of his fellow slaves; he had to run from it somehow.

"That's not fair!"

Everyone in the room laughed, chuckled as if Shinji had told a decent joke. Glanton spoke for them all: "where do you think you are? We aren't in the Vault you claim to have grown up in. We're in the Great American Wasteland. What honor do you take us to have? What claim do you have to fairness, to equality? You are weak, unfamiliar with the world. You grew up in a Vault, hundreds of meters removed from the fire and radiation that have poisoned us from birth. What can you say about equality, about fairness, Vault-boy?" The slavers in the room, Glanton's bodyguards and Tobin all nodded in agreement.

"I didn't ask to be born in a Vault!" He thought back to the days, the lonely days he had spent at home without parent or friend to comfort him, "you can't blame me for something like that!"

"Then you can't blame me for taking what you say with a grain of salt. That's how life is kid. Fuck or get fucked; and you'll get plenty fucked once we sell you." Glanton had on his face an angry sneer, "Tobin, chain him back up. We'll confirm the location of Vault-72 when we get to Old Hope." Shinji tried to yell, scream, kick and bite in protest, but to no avail. Heavy boots caught him by the torso, knocking the wind from his lungs and the an acrid taste of bile and blood along with it. The heavy bomb collar clicked shut once more. Freedom never seemed so far.

* * *

 _April 22, 2161: 3:00 AM_

 _Asuka and Vespa: Sleeping_

"Have you ever seen the stars?"

The fire had sunken low and night was deep upon the pair. Asuka was still, lying on her back, staring at the vast expanse of blue-grey clouds that covered the sky.

"Can't say that I have," Vespa paused for a moment, "I don't think I've ever seen the sun either."

Asuka cursed under her breath, "I've always wanted to see them. Learned about them a bunch during school. Cassiopeia. Sirius. Acructus. You're named after a star, did you know that?"

"Never knew," Vespa sat up, leaning backwards on one arm, pointing upwards with the other, "you know what stars are?"

"Yeah. They're made of hydrogen and stuff, burning gases. Nuclear fusion and all that," she saw his head made dark by the night, illuminated only dimly by the dying coals, shake from side to side.

"Not what I'm talking about."

"Then what?"

Vespa didn't speak for a moment but then continued. "A long time ago; I'm talking about thousands of years ago, people used to think that the stars were all individual gods. Looking down on us. Protecting us. Hearing our prayers. They used to chronicle their beliefs in through the stars, connecting those bright pinpricks into whatever they could think of. Monsters and heros. Gods and men. All of them outlined in black and glowing, _glowing_ white," he got up and put more wood on the fire, sending embers flying all around. "Stars. There used to be a kind of gravity you know. Every single civilization, every single religion ever to exist had some sort of story behind whatever's out there."

"But we can't see them anymore."

"They can't see us either."

"But isn't that a little sad? You said that people used to think they were Gods… Doesn't that mean God isn't watching us anymore?"

Vespa shook his head and somehow, Asuka saw even in the dead light.

"When the world is sick… this world _is_ sick… it's hard to look at. When the bombs first dropped, they say that it was so bright that people's eyes would turn to glass, just from the light and heat. Baked in their skulls. Maybe even God became blind," he sighed, "or maybe he just doesn't want to watch us anymore. His creation, his children turning each other into ashes… _dust to dust_ , it says in the Bible or something."

The topic was depressing, Asuka sought to change it. "What about tomorrow? Any plans?"

"Traveling mostly. I told you earlier that someone hired me out to scavenge for parts. There's a hospital building, all gutted and ruined that should have what I'm looking for. We'll probably arrive near tomorrow evening. Day after that we'll search it."

"Isn't that a little… dangerous?" Asuka wasn't _scared_ , she would never admit that, but she was unarmed; and over the past several days she had learned that unarmed usually meant dead.

"Probably more than a little dangerous," he grinned and his white teeth gleamed in the grey light of early morning, "but most things are. We'll be on the lookout for guns and such so that you won't be defenseless."

"And then we'll go to Old Hope? To Always Autumn?" _To Shinji?_

"Guess so."

"Why don't we go there right now?"

Vespa sighed, "slave caravans travel awfully slow. Many feet make heavy travel, something like that… 'sides, we don't have any money. How're you gonna buy your friend out of slavery?"

Asuka nodded grimly, it was true. She had nothing. "You think we'll earn enough tomorrow to get the idiot back?"

There came a barking laugh. "No… That's not happening for a while yet. Here's a lesson; slaves, especially young ones, almost always get sold to brothels. Usually bought for a couple thousand, they can earn ten times that in a month if they're cute. You're going to need to out bid whoever's gonna be trying to buy the poor kid."

Far away a bird cried.

* * *

 _April 22, 2161: 12:00 PM_

 _On the road with Shinji Ikari_

They had been marching for only an hour or two when they came to an abrupt halt. The slaves sat down on the dirt, nursing their aching joints and leaden limbs, circulation cut off by heavy chains and manacles. Bloody bruises ringing their ankles and wrists and neck. The sound of a dozen conversations emerged, slaves whispering to each other, grateful yet confused for as the reason to their respite from the endless march. The slavers checked the chains of the slaves for any signs of weakness, and once satisfied with their integrity, went to the head of the caravan to see what had caused the commotion.

Shinji too found himself wondering why they had stopped, but was afraid to voice his questions. The other slaves didn't seem to appreciate him very much. His status as a former Vault dweller had become common knowledge and many looked down on him for it. The injustice of existence. Shinji had been born underground and was privy to a life that the surface dwellers, the damned men and women of the Wasteland, would never even come close to knowing. A life of security and plenty that Shinji had been forced to leave behind.

"Why'd we stop?" People were asking.

It wasn't long til the slavers came back, swinging batons and whips instead of warning for silence.

"Quiet down!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Shinji curled up in a ball, lying on his side, knees jackknifed to his chest and breathe loud as thunder in his ears. Terror, sheer terror.

A gunshot rang out but Shinji could not tell if anyone had been hit.

"Alright! The new guy, where is he?" A slaver asked his reluctant congregation, "we got him yesterday and Glanton wants to talk to him again." The slaves sat on the floor staring dumbly at the speaker. "Start talking! The boss wants him _pronto_ ; I'll start taking it out on all of you if he's not up here soon."

Someone kicked Shinji in the small of the back, knocking the breath from his lungs and making him spasm for a short moment. He turned and glared; a fellow slave had done it.

"He's here! The new one!"

The slaver who had spoken earlier looked pleased. "That's more like it. Come on up here, boy."

"I can't, sir… I'm chained up…" Shinji motioned to the manacles that still hugged his joints painfully in a plea for some assistance.

"Didn't ask you about any chains, now did I?" The slaver beckoned Shinji to come up with his hand, "come on up here."

Confused and afraid, Shinji stood and tried to walk. The manacles bit even deeper, they being fixed to two other slaves made the angle of contact awkward, more concentrated and sharper. Tears welled in his eyes and he took a step, he fell on the second one and his fallen body raised a cloud of dust, the slaves next to him too heavy, too sullen to drag along.

A pattering running noise and a boot found itself lodged in Shinji's lower stomach, causing him to seize painfully and cry out. His thrashing caused the chains to rattle like a windchime in tornado country and the manacles bit into his skin anew.

"I told you to get up didn't I? Fucking _slave_ can't even follow a simple direction…" the slaver bent down and unlocked the chains so that Shinji could walk in earnest. "Come on!" He dragged Shinji by the wrist, a hard, rough hand on the tender bruise pulling this way and that.

Shinji followed along, half running, half crawling, and half being dragged, gasping and crying all the while. "Please… someone…" The slaves only stared their haunting, gaunt stares.

The rough treatment continued for a while until Shinji and his escort finally reached the head of the caravan where two men were speaking to one another.

"That's enough D'Arby. Go back now."

Shinji sobbed on the ground under Glanton's shadow, something huge and distorted in the dead light of the hidden sun and the horse he rode atop of.

"Stand up, boy."

He shuddered to stand, knees feeling huge and clacking against each other.

"Why am I here?" He meant to say, but it came out quiet and pained, almost unintelligible. The second man was unfamiliar; a giant of a man over seven feet tall. His strange pale skinned hands were comically small. His head, no _face_ , was completely hairless.

Glanton ignored Shinji's question and introduced the giant man across from him. "This man here," Glanton paused and wet his cracked lips, "calls himself _Judge_ Holden."

"But why am I—"

"You're here 'cause the Judge just vouched for you. Says you're telling the truth about that Vault you mentioned."

"Does that mean… you're gonna let me go?"

Relief and joy only increased as Shinji watched Glanton purse his lips and throw a key over to him, which he struggled to catch but did not drop.

"I'm a man of my word."

The key work and the shackles fell to the floor one by one.

"Thank you so—" Shinji began.

"How did you learn of this? Of Vault-22?" The one called Holden said. His voice, something airy and educated, didn't fit his person.

"I was born there."

The Judge dismounted his own horse, a huge black stallion with angry white starbursts placed prettily over forehead and flank.

"Were you now…" the man seemed to think to himself a while before turning to Glanton. "If I might suggest: keep him with you a while. He'll tell you what he knows of the Vault."

It was then that Shinji realized what his betrayal would cause. Murderers, slavers, and degenerates of all kinds would go to the Vault, his home. The place where he had grown up; but the place that had also thrown him to die… But could he do the same? He had already told the slavers, monsters of the Wasteland, where the Vault was… but leading them, helping them enter was another story. Could he play accessory to murder?

"What say you boy?" Glanton asked, "you gonna lead us there? You're a free man now; your end of the deal we had is done. Your choice now."

The boy thought for a moment. Here he was, in the Wasteland, alone, not even Asuka with him. He had none of the bottlecaps that the Wastelanders used as currency. No weapon with him, and no knowledge on how to survive, to live. What could he do alone? He'd die before reaching any sort of recognizable civilization. The plains of dead earth and bony trees were vast and reached far beyond mortal vision.

"How about…" he was struggling to say it, truly he was. The pain of the chains and kicks was fading fast now, only a small ache that he could ignore for a bit. "How about we make another deal? I help you get to Vault-72 and in return, you can help me out."

The Judge smiled. Something terrifying. His lips like great ridges of flesh that grew at the sides of large wounds, teeth large and straight set; not exactly white, more of a grey-beige color. Unnatural.

"What might you be wanting?" Glanton asked, taking a bite of whatever the black resin he chew on all the while, "food and guns we can give you to a degree, not too keen on giving you and caps though."

"How about letting me join?"

The Glanton Gang grew by one member that day.

* * *

 _April 23, 2161: 11:00 AM_

 _On the road with Shinji Ikari_

The slavers all woke up early that day. Two of their cargo, both seven year old boys, had gone missing. Chains intact with bomb collars placed neatly beside. The other slaves swore, even after beatings, that they hadn't seen or heard anything strange. No one knew what to make of it; and in the end it was forgotten. Two slaves didn't hurt profits in any meaningful ways anyhow.

Still, despite the mystery that the day had begun with, Shinji was mostly happy. His induction into the Glanton Gang had brought with it several benefits. For one, Shinji was now the proud owner of a firearm, a small handgun, and a heavy wooden club. His food, what used to be simple porridge and salt, was now simple porridge and salt with dried meat and grains.

The other slavers seemed indifferent to him now.

"Say, Tobin, where do you think those slaves went?" The caravan had stopped for lunch. The Judge had, in a spectacular feat of marksmanship, killed a pair of wild deer using a long barreled rifle that shot giant conical lead pieces the size of a man's fist rather than standard bullets. The meat was gristly and dripping with fat, still warm with blood and the flames of the cookfire. It was the best thing Shinji had tasted in his whole life.

"Don't rightly know," Tobin seemed to catch himself, "or more like; can't rightly say."

"They were kids though; how could they survive out here?" Shinji gestured to the world at large, at the cruel landscape colored rust by disintegrating buildings and the dried ichor of entire generations of men who had killed themselves with nuclear fire, and then with guns and cold knives.

"How could anyone survive out there? The Wasteland isn't safe kid. Not for a grown man, nor for a pair of children. Wherever they are; they're dead. It's a good thing you choose to join us, you would've died otherwise."

"Does it ever bug you? Being a slaver? It isn't exactly a _good_ thing to do…"

"Glanton Gang isn't just slaving. Just making money, is all. You know how it all works?"

"What do you mean?"

Tobin sighed, "the Gang, our gang, is a just one part of a big group of gangs, a _super_ gang you could call it."

Shinji waited expectantly.

"Let's see now… History of it all is a bit long, I'll tell you that some other time. The supergang that we're a part of is called the Horn," Tobin rolled up a sleeve to show Shinji a tattoo. The word _death_ , spelled out in capitals, a period between each letter and the next. "D.E.A.T.H: Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn. Don't really know about the leader of The Horn though, never really met him."

"What about the rest?"

"Two other supergangs… There's Trystero and Schwarzgerat. Don't really know much about the others. Gang wars between the big guys are pretty rare. Mostly the sub gangs fighting each other." A strange nostalgic look came across Tobin's face, creasing it even further than it already had been, telling Shinji that more questions were unwelcome.

So here he was now. Shinji Ikari. Vaultdweller. Slave. Member of the Glanton Gang, subsidiary of The Horn. Where would life go next?

 **AN: Pretty weak chapter. Very little action; but plots needs to be built. Next chapter should be out with in the week, and will be much more action filled. Review and everything. Thanks for reading**


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